Blog

Reuters report finds cultural divide in coverage of skeptics

11 Nov 2011, 13:00

Ros Donald

The large majority of press coverage of climate skeptic
viewpoints occurs in the 'Anglo-Saxon' print media, according to a
new study. In these countries, these views are most likely to be
represented without criticism in the right-wing press.

Poles Apart, a report released yesterday by Oxford University's
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, charts the coverage
of climate change in six countries in 2007 and between 2009 and
2010 - periods that include the UN Copenhagen climate summit and
'Climategate'. It finds that the UK and US print media represents
more than 80 per cent of the times skeptic voices were quoted
during the two periods.

The report examines representations of climate science in 12
newspapers in the UK, US, France, China, India and Brazil. It
looks at one left- and one right-leaning paper for each country so,
for example, in the UK it analyses climate change coverage in the
Guardian and Observer and
that of the Telegraph and
Sunday Telegraph.

"Poles apart" refers to the marked difference in the coverage of
climate skepticism in Anglo Saxon countries as compared the rest of
the world. The media coverage of climate change in India, Brazil
and China "seems to be the polar opposite of that found in parts of
the media in the USA, the UK and Australia." It says:

"The issue - and science - of climate
change has become contested, polarised and politicised - at least
in the Anglo-Saxon world."

But in contrast "climate skepticism is seldom seen or
heard in the media in newly emerging power houses like Brazil,
China and India," and is also "in general thinner on the ground" in
France and continental Europe.

Why is this? The report suggests several reasons, including
that:

"The presence of politicians espousing
some variation of climate skepticism, the existence of organised
interest that feed skeptical coverage, and partisan media receptive
to this message, all play a particularly significant role in
explaining the greater prevalence of skeptical voices in the print
media of the USA and UK. In these two countries climate change has
become - to different degrees - more of a politicised issue, which
politically polarised print media pick up and reflect. This helps
to explain why Brazil, India, France and other countries in
continental Europe have - to different degrees - a politically
divided print media, but do not have the same prevalence of
skeptical voices."

According to the report, climate skeptic voices are most often
manifest in newspapers' opinion pages, with UK and US newspapers
containing significantly more uncontested skeptical opinion. In
2009/10, the Guardian had 11
opinion pieces that included skeptical voices - but nine of them
were dismissive of skeptical views. Meanwhile, the
Telegraph and Sunday
Telegraph between them had 24 opinion pieces about climate
change, of which over half expressed a skeptical viewpoint.

The sources of the quotes also reflect the politicisation of
climate science in the English-speaking Western world. While one
third of skeptic sources quoted overall were politicians -
skeptical climate scientists only represented one fifth - almost
none of the skeptics quoted in India, China or Brazil were
politicians.

The skeptic scientists mentioned in the newspapers studied tend
to come from the US, according to the report. It says: "many
skeptical climate scientists, some with links to think tanks and
lobby groups, are based [in the USA and] Canada, but they have an
international reach way beyond their borders." Eleven out of 18
skeptic scientists quoted in the UK media in the two periods were
based in the US and Canada.

The
UK

To get a better idea of how ideology and climate skepticism are
linked, the researchers also studied climate coverage in ten UK
newspapers, where they found a "strong correspondence" between the
title's political leaning and the prevalence of skeptics
quoted.

According to the report, "there was an increase in all 10
newspapers over the two periods of articles with skeptical voices
in them. The increase was most marked for the right-leaning
Express, Mail and Star." Out of all of them, the Express
published most of these - 50 per cent of its articles between 2009
and 2010 quoted skeptics. Right-leaning newspapers were also most
likely to publish skeptic viewpoints without contesting them,
according to the research.

While many of the skeptical climate scientists that made it into
the papers are from the US, one skeptic organisation outdoes all
others in the UK press. Lord Lawson's climate skeptic think-tank
the Global Warming Policy
Foundation far outstrips other skeptic sources across the ten
newspapers studied in the UK:

"The two most quoted skeptics by far in
the second period were Lord Lawson and Benny Peiser - more than 80
times between them. This compares with 13 times for the most quoted
climate skeptic scientist, Professor Ian Plimer."

But while skeptics have gained a voice in UK media, the split
between left and right on climate change is not as clear-cut as
in the US. The UK's right-wing newspapers reflect divisions
in Conservative attitudes toward climate change, the report
says:

"Despite powerful skeptical voices on
the fringes, the main body of the Conservative Party leadership
publicly supports climate science. This may help to explain why the
Sunday Telegraph regularly gives space to the columnist Christopher
Booker to appeal to disenchanted Conservative and UKIP voters […].
In contrast, the more mainstream treatment of the science in The
Times and Sun, both of them right-leaning, is more in tune with
mainstream Conservative Party thinking."

The study also draws links between the coverage of climate
skepticism in the media and other trends. Interestingly, it points
out that the US, Australia and Britain all have "…the presence of
large, privately owned oil, coal and mining companies which have
much to lose - arguably the most - by international or national
legislation enforcing cuts in carbon emissions or a major switch to
renewable sources of energy" - something that is much less
prevalent in Brazil, India and France. (US fossil fuel interests
have links to climate skeptic lobbyists in the US and Australia,
although in the UK such links, if they exist, are yet to be
demonstrated.)

The UK's competitive tabloid culture "with a strong political or
quasi-campaigning agenda" also plays a part, it says. In contrast,
Brazil has a "strong tradition of trained science journalists".
Neither India nor Brazil have lobby groups linked to the fossil
fuel industry as found in the US and Australia, and France,
meanwhile, has a "strong 'pro-science' or rationalist culture" that
the study says might influence reporting in the country.

Poles Apart was part-funded by
the European Climate Foundation, who also provide our
funding.